“As far as I know, I’m the only filmmaker to make any documentaries about the history of the Naval prison outside of the Navy.” --Neil Novello, Producer

The Naval prison has been a fixture on a bluff overlooking the Piscataqua River adjacent to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, ME for 114 years.

Mr. Novello’s presentation will be a combination of historic photos along with video clips from his documentary video anthology: The Castle: Stories of the Portsmouth Naval Prison. It chronicles the 66 year history of the Navy’s only maximum security prison in the world, where as many as 50,000 sailors and Marines spent time.

The video clips cover three time periods starting with the end of World War 1; highlights the controversial commander of the prison who brought scandal, prison reform, and a movie crew. There’s 90 year-old footage of the prison from a silent Hollywood movie where Naval prisoners were used as extras. From the World War II era, Mr. Novello will show a video clip filmed in May 1945 which features rarely seen footage of captured German U-Boat crews escorted to the Naval prison. And there are video clip interviews with Navy and Marine personnel stationed at the prison during the Vietnam War era along with footage of the prison produced in 1971 by the Navy.